If you were the government, how would you fight against bitcoin?

[romero121]

I don't think there is a government that can stop bitcoin 100%, isn't it better for the country to take care of things that are more important than bitcoin itself if one country has economic and security problems,
I think it's a waste of time if one government only focuses on fighting the existence of bitcoin

because Bitcoin cannot be fought and stopped, more and more people are adopting it every day

Yeah, not country or a government is able to stop it. I'll try to follow the footsteps of Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador. Surely it'll bring success to the country's economy in the long term. Also when we allow the people to benefit out of it, surely they'll pay the proper amount to the government. It is for the revenue the countries find possible ways to keep the users under control.

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[GreatArkansas]

Regulations everywhere. If I were the government, same as what they are doing right now. Regulations. Become more strict. As you can see, these governments are first working on top or on top cryptocurrency entities which I believe for them, by doing that, it will pass down to the retail individuals.
Since Bitcoin really can't control by anyone even the government, it's still useless. For me, those regulations got different to do with Bitcoin since Bitcoin created as decentralized at all.

[LogitechMouse]

- Prison sentences for people getting caught owning BTC, trading it or selling goods in BTC. Penalties so severe that most people will back off. I often hear local media associate BTC holders with criminals and money launderers, and expect governments to treat them as such. Local banks in my country can face penalties if crypto profits are transfered to a local bank account.

There are some criminals who are still at large right now. Do you think that putting us Bitcoin holders into prison will be the solution against Bitcoin? Nahhh I don't think so and just think, how will the authorities know who the current Bitcoin holders are? What will be the case that will be given to them? It will take time and I don't think the authorities will do such things like this.
Overall, there might be some governments that are anti-Bitcoin but, in the end, they can't do anything to stop those people to get involved into cryptocurrency. There is famous quote that says, "If you can't beat them, join them". Government will waste tons of money by fighting against Bitcoin and in the end, they will not accomplish anything that's for sure. Regulations might help but regulations are being made to protect the countrymen and not to stop them from using it.

Government can't stop a thing that they didn't create at first so maybe forget that scenario already that the government will fight against Bitcoin because just by looking at what's happening with Bitcoin, it looks like there are no ways for people to stop them from buying it.

[JeremyVivyan]

If I were the government, the best way to fight it is to understand it, accept it, even own it, show the people this series of changes and let them judge for themselves.

[tiCeR]

I've often heard that nothing can stop bitcoin.
While this may be true, I would like to make a list of all possible ways in which banks and governments will try to fight against BTC. So we could find ways to anticipate against it.

Some ideas:

- Prison sentences for people getting caught owning BTC, trading it or selling goods in BTC. Penalties so severe that most people will back off. I often hear local media associate BTC holders with criminals and money launderers, and expect governments to treat them as such. Local banks in my country can face penalties if crypto profits are transfered to a local bank account.

- Regulation for exchanges getting so tough that they can never comply, which will cause them to be shut down, which would generate a run on crypto with a similar effect to FTX bankruptcy.
- Liquidity crises of the exchanges. In case of a bank run, banks can pay about 3% of their account holders. I wonder which amount of liquidity an exchange should have to be solvent. FTX behaved like a bank, but the difference is that FTX' bankruptcy can cause a crash of BTC price while a bank run just leads to the bank being bailed out by the IMF, without the currency getting destroyed.

If you think that none of these things is a realistic threat to the system, let me know.
If there are other threats, likewise.

What might make the most sense in my opinion is too increase friction as much as possible. Saying that Bitcoin is "unstoppable" is indeed true. What governments can do is to turn Bitcoin from an innovational Ferrari into a heavy transport train, maybe blowing up the rails at times to try to stop it temporarily in making any progress.

Now you realize that even if you slow Bitcoin down, it is still a heavy transport train, going slowly but surely as there is enough lobby taking care of functioning rails.

> Prison sentences: that's a funny one because even today many countries have issues in keeping up the logistics and sufficient capacities for criminals not involved in Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in general. When India threatened to put everyone into jail who is dealing with crypto, I guess you wouldn't have had to pass any class in school in order to know that putting 100 million Indians into jail (let's leave the whole administration for police investigation and court processes aside) might be sliiightly too demanding for the Indian system as a whole!

Sure, they could try and set precedences by nationwide propaganda, letting people know that someone is going to jail for 15 years as a consequence of owning some Bitcoin, but seriously that is not going to work out either. They would have to destroy any rule of law and any bit of democracy to justify a prison sentence that might not even have the slightest of an effect, taking into consideration that not even the death penalty is backed by science showing that a certain crime rate goes down as a result of the death penalty.

>Increasing regulation for exchanges until they can't handle it anymore: this won't work either in the mid to long-term for various good reasons. One reason is that decentralized exchanges are already there and they will only get better. Multi-sig technologies already allow for safe peer-to-peer transactions on simple websites that can't even easily be shut down by the governments. Fully decentralized exchanges are evolving. How are you going to increase regulation for them? There are surely ways to regulate the version that might be there today, but what if there is another version tomorrow? The issue regulation has in comparison to technological innovation: it always lacks behind. And in many cases the developers might not even be known so you can't even sue anyone.

If I recall correctly, the use of Tornado.cash was sanctioned now. People who use it get into trouble. Really? That leads me to my next point, also addressing your precise question whether increased regulation could force exchanges into compliance issues.

>Lawsuits! Tornado.cash, and I really expected it, under the lead of Coin Center is going to sue US Financial Authorities! When governments decide to increase compliance rules to a level such that crypto-related exchanges specifically are brought to their knees, they will guaranteed fight back legally. The case is easy to be made: why would a financial institution facilitating trade be any different in front of the law than the ordinary bank? Crypto exchanges would cooperate, which means they would have access to financial superpower (even Binance alone I guess) and employ an army of lawyers and investigators in order to find loopholes, simple proofs that banks are no different, complex proofs for the matter as well, and probably a lot of stuff we can't even imagine. I want to see the judge who then comes up with a plausible verdict that justifies different treatment between banks and registered exchanges so severe that compliance rules for crypto exchanges can be of magnitudes harder than those for banks. I am sure they can come up with shenanigans for a certain period of time, but they can't probably make a case that means end to crypto exchanges while allowing banks to prosper with their current business models. It just needs a single financial crisis and those verdicts would be attacked again.


The decision that is to be made by governments is whether to fight or embrace Bitcoin, also in the fact of global competition. We have already seen companies choosing the most crypto-friendly countries to incorporate their headquarters. Switzerland was a great example for that and so governments also feel the pressure to not make mistakes and abandon an entire industry with strong future potential.

[coupable]

Technically speaking, it is impossible to prevent anyone from using Bitcoin unless you succeed in cutting off the Internet completely from their devices for a long time. There is practically no effective way to stop the use of Bitcoin.
On the other hand, some governments are restricting users who can identify them, but this does not stop the wave of adoption. We have seen governments discredit Bitcoin and others warn about it.
The best way to deal with this is for governments to legalize its use and benefit from it, which seems far away due to the stubbornness of the banking sector, which is considered the most affected.

Even if the government goes tight in bitcoin restrictions and sanctions for bitcoin owners, that will not stop people from wanting bitcoin. Just like how they threat illegal gamblers, but still there are a lot of illegal gamblers around betting here and there. Same with bitcoin, they won't be able to control and fight against it, unless if there are sudden internet shutdown, definitely that will stop all bitcoin transactions.

As I mentioned before, it is technically impossible to prevent people from using Bitcoin simply because it is not possible to prevent people from using the internet on their phones. The state cannot stop the services of Internet providers.
What I mean by legalizing bitcoin is enabling the platforms to obtain activity licenses, so the state can track the financial activities of bitcoin users and be able to tax them and combat suspicious activities. For peer transactions, it cannot be counted, but it remains a degree of risk that cannot be denied.

[rikybrosh]

It is depend on situation of the country, if it seems that it's okay to adopt bitcoin then governments may use bitcoin as catalyst for economic growth because some economics sectors such as fintech and etc may have good development progress. But if the situation of the country need to make the fiat remain strong in the market then they have no choice. I think the problem here is not the government but the fiat that we use. This currency has many weaknesses and can easily loss it's value by only destroy the country literally or economically. It's not like a real gold where it's always has value in many condition.

[Ndabagi01]

We’ve often heard a lot of gullible about bitcoin and these can’t stop bitcoins mass adoption. A lot of critics about it have also gone viral which has also hinder its acceptance everywhere. Putting people into jail for using cryptocurrency cannot stop its adoption, only if the internet can be stopped will bitcoin follow suit. So bitcoin is here to stay forever.

[WeThePe0ple]

You ask in this forum with the majority of bitcoiners about how to fight bitcoin? I personally know how bitcoin works in general, I'm not going against it.

I have no idea that even governments feel threatened (unless they have a highly corrupt system), instead the threat is aimed at the fractional reserve system of bankers. If leaders want a transparent financial system, then they must follow how bitcoin works.

I see the government as the enemy of the people. And to protect our assets (BTC) we must understand how the enemy thinks and operates.
As George Orwell predicted, banks and governments want to control every aspect of our lives.
If you ask the bank to withdraw $5000 dollars, they will interrogate you like a criminal for getting access to your own money.

Bitcoin is totally out of their control. They can not tax what they don't know you own.
Central banks can not print bitcoin. They can't enslave humans with debt traps in BTC, with inflation, and with rising intrest rates killing economies.
Therefore banks and governments are terrified of bitcoin. They can't take it from you.

So I expect banks and governments to fight back, and I wonder how they will.
I expect excuses like "Criminals use it for money laundering" and "Mining bitcoins is bad for the environment. We must save the planet"
Or "Trading bitcoin for currency is a threat to the stability of the monetary system. Therefore we must prevent conversion of currency to BTC"

The FTX bankruptcy seems to have sparked a contagion of collapses that may cause a total meltdown of the crypto industry. It would not surprise me if Sam Bankman Fried acted as a service to the banking industry.

[WeThePe0ple]

As I mentioned before, it is technically impossible to prevent people from using Bitcoin simply because it is not possible to prevent people from using the internet on their phones. The state cannot stop the services of Internet providers.

While it is true that the government can't stop the internet, I don't think this means it can't stop BTC.

In 1971, president Nixon made a legendary speech in which he forbid all foreign nations to exchange their dollars for gold.
In reality this was because the US had made far more expenses in dollars than it could back up in gold. But in the speech, Nixon said that this exchange was now forbidden in order to protect the value of the dollar against speculators. And to protect the monetary stability of the USA.  The dollar would lose its purchasing power if everybody dumped them for gold.

By the same analogy, I think that governments can prevent the conversion from BTC to currency (USD/euro).
They can do this by regulating the exchanges. For example demanding that every transaction in BTC gets validated (no criminals involved) the way a regular bank validates payments or declines them.

At this point, your BTC has value because you can convert it to currency. Which you can then use to buy gas, groceries, real estate..
If governments succeed in prohibiting the exchange from BTC to currency, you can no longer pay.
Probably for some stuff in El Salvador where BTC is currency, but not in Europe.

Maybe a BTC holder would have to go to El Salvador to convert BTC, and then fly back home with the asset.

[Smack That Ace]

- Prison sentences for people getting caught owning BTC, trading it or selling goods in BTC. Penalties so severe that most people will back off. I often hear local media associate BTC holders with criminals and money launderers, and expect governments to treat them as such. Local banks in my country can face penalties if crypto profits are transfered to a local bank account.

There are some criminals who are still at large right now. Do you think that putting us Bitcoin holders into prison will be the solution against Bitcoin? Nahhh I don't think so and just think, how will the authorities know who the current Bitcoin holders are? What will be the case that will be given to them? It will take time and I don't think the authorities will do such things like this.
Overall, there might be some governments that are anti-Bitcoin but, in the end, they can't do anything to stop those people to get involved into cryptocurrency. There is famous quote that says, "If you can't beat them, join them". Government will waste tons of money by fighting against Bitcoin and in the end, they will not accomplish anything that's for sure. Regulations might help but regulations are being made to protect the countrymen and not to stop them from using it.

Government can't stop a thing that they didn't create at first so maybe forget that scenario already that the government will fight against Bitcoin because just by looking at what's happening with Bitcoin, it looks like there are no ways for people to stop them from buying it.

Lol, I really liked the idea,  

Code:

"If you can't beat them, join them"

I believe no country's government is ignorant of Bitcoin right now. Governments of all countries have ministries of information and technology and have considerable knowledge of blockchain.

It is my belief that almost every country's government has an investment in Bitcoin. They know they can't stop people from using Bitcoin, but what they can do is create fear in people's minds. If the government can ever identify Bitcoin users, they present them to society as if they are the world's most feared criminals, they present Bitcoin as a taboo in the eyes of society. However, it is certain that they do not have the power to separate people from Bitcoin.

But they want the people to stay away from the decentralized system. For example, I can talk about Sri Lanka. Today, if the people of Sri Lanka had invested in Bitcoin and not deposited money in the bank, even if their banks were bankrupt, the people would have been freed from this curse.


regards

duke

[WeThePe0ple]

There are too many ways how to use blockchain networks which makes an advantage to our government.  Something like online crypto payments for real estate auctions, taxes, and fees.  So how could anyone be against the utility of blockchain aside from storing the value?

After regulation, do you believe that the government will succeed in taxing bitcoin?

I will give you a realistic situation. My parents own 3 properties, with a total value of 1 million dollars.
The government loves stealing money from citizens, so they have invented an inheritance tax. If my father passes away, I have to pay roughly $300 000 of inheritance taxes for those properties. It's like getting expropriated.

Obviously I do not want to pay these taxes. I can ask my father to sell the 3 properties while he is still alive. Then convert the revenue of 1 million dollars to BTC, and then pass it to my Ledger device. Now the government can not claim $300 000 of taxes. I will just own 1 million dollars of BTC with 0 tax. The government can not see my account. I can say I have made other transactions or got robbed. So they can't tax me and they lose their income.

Do you see why the government and the bank hate BTC?

I think that the arguments tax evasion and money laundering will cause them treat holders of bitcoin like criminals.

[Stalker22]

After regulation, do you believe that the government will succeed in taxing bitcoin?

I will give you a realistic situation. My parents own 3 properties, with a total value of 1 million dollars.
The government loves stealing money from citizens, so they have invented an inheritance tax. If my father passes away, I have to pay roughly $300 000 of inheritance taxes for those properties. It's like getting expropriated.

Obviously I do not want to pay these taxes. I can ask my father to sell the 3 properties while he is still alive. Then convert the revenue of 1 million dollars to BTC, and then pass it to my Ledger device. Now the government can not claim $300 000 of taxes. I will just own 1 million dollars of BTC with 0 tax. The government can not see my account. I can say I have made other transactions or got robbed. So they can't tax me and they lose their income.

Do you see why the government and the bank hate BTC?

I think that the arguments tax evasion and money laundering will cause them treat holders of bitcoin like criminals.

I don't know where you live, but I doubt that it is possible to sell (or buy) properties without some kind of taxation. No matter what form of payment you use. If your strategy to avoid taxation is buying/selling with cryptocurrency, you cannot avoid paying taxes. You can try to evade them, but that is illegal and I would not recommend it as you will most likely fail.

The government hates BTC and other cryptocurrencies because they can't control them. They want to control everything and make sure they get their cut, but Bitcoin is a decentralized currency that cannot be controlled by any one entity. This is why many governments around the world are cracking down on cryptocurrencies, but it is also why more people are using them. The more the government tries to control things, the more people will look for alternatives and seek out ways to protect their privacy when using digital currencies like Bitcoin.

[Oneandpure]

The government hates BTC and other cryptocurrencies because they can't control them. They want to control everything and make sure they get their cut, but Bitcoin is a decentralized currency that cannot be controlled by any one entity. This is why many governments around the world are cracking down on cryptocurrencies, but it is also why more people are using them. The more the government tries to control things, the more people will look for alternatives and seek out ways to protect their privacy when using digital currencies like Bitcoin.

Around the world many government and countries hate with Bitcoin adopted as legal currency transaction except El Savador have made it legal, I don't think easy if our position in government and want to make Bitcoin as legal currency transaction because need all parliament agreement vote. Have little funny in my country because Bitcoin is illegal transaction currency and we can't use Bitcoin for transaction on real market, but each trade we made always cut off for paying taxes.

If I were government one day later, I will try give solution and talk about what positive side from Bitcoin and why have to make it legal, need to give clearly explaining how to make people understand about Bitcoin and have positive impact when Bitcoin adopting.

[coupable]

As I mentioned before, it is technically impossible to prevent people from using Bitcoin simply because it is not possible to prevent people from using the internet on their phones. The state cannot stop the services of Internet providers.

While it is true that the government can't stop the internet, I don't think this means it can't stop BTC.

In 1971, president Nixon made a legendary speech in which he forbid all foreign nations to exchange their dollars for gold.
In reality this was because the US had made far more expenses in dollars than it could back up in gold. But in the speech, Nixon said that this exchange was now forbidden in order to protect the value of the dollar against speculators. And to protect the monetary stability of the USA.  The dollar would lose its purchasing power if everybody dumped them for gold.

By the same analogy, I think that governments can prevent the conversion from BTC to currency (USD/euro).
They can do this by regulating the exchanges. For example demanding that every transaction in BTC gets validated (no criminals involved) the way a regular bank validates payments or declines them.

By the same analogy, similar decisions could never be applied to digital assets that people can use without their governments knowing. Comparison with gold is not permissible because the entire gold market is monitored and cannot be hidden, unlike Bitcoin, which preserves the privacy of users.
People can use bitcoin as a meaning of exchange even without converting it into fiat. People today in many societies that suffer from financial and economic crises use USDT, for example, to carry out small buying and selling operations peer-to-peer, without the need to convert it into fiat, but only give it a value according to the value of the dollar in the market.
When countries legalize use, it does not mean that they will actually be able to monitor the movement of bitcoin among their citizens, they simply cannot do anything in front of it, and this is what makes bitcoin a real safe haven.

[BitDane]

There are too many ways how to use blockchain networks which makes an advantage to our government.  Something like online crypto payments for real estate auctions, taxes, and fees.  So how could anyone be against the utility of blockchain aside from storing the value?

After regulation, do you believe that the government will succeed in taxing bitcoin?

No, I do not think that the government will succeed in taxing Bitcoin, yes, they can implement taxation on cryptocurrency, that is easy but the challenge is collection of taxes.  They won't succeed because government is already a failure in collecting tax on their own currency.

[CryptoPanda]

It’s nearly an impossible task to completely stop people from using bitcoin. The government would have to spend a lot of resources and time to make it work. The most effective way which the governments have been using to prevent mass adoption of bitcoin is bad media representation of bitcoin. Bitcoin has been tainted by the media and called many bad names, a fraud, a Ponzi scheme, KGB tool, anything and everything has been said in the media to present bitcoin in a negative space. It worked for a while but now people are beginning to see through their BS

[Party24*7]

There are too many ways how to use blockchain networks which makes an advantage to our government.  Something like online crypto payments for real estate auctions, taxes, and fees.  So how could anyone be against the utility of blockchain aside from storing the value?

After regulation, do you believe that the government will succeed in taxing bitcoin?

No, I do not think that the government will succeed in taxing Bitcoin, yes, they can implement taxation on cryptocurrency, that is easy but the challenge is collection of taxes.  They won't succeed because government is already a failure in collecting tax on their own currency.

But they are taxing cryptocurrency without any hassle.

For example I can say, In my country, it is not possible to buy Bitcoin by using fiat money from an exchange unless I pay taxes to the government.

Yes, many will say why we need to use the exchange? Just use p2p system. It is true that using p2p does not incur tax but there is some risk in using p2p.
So, I think Bitcoin should be legalized even if the government pays a little taxes. At first we need vast adoption.

[Thomas Kralow]

I've often heard that nothing can stop bitcoin.
While this may be true, I would like to make a list of all possible ways in which banks and governments will try to fight against BTC. So we could find ways to anticipate against it.

Some ideas:

- Prison sentences for people getting caught owning BTC, trading it or selling goods in BTC. Penalties so severe that most people will back off. I often hear local media associate BTC holders with criminals and money launderers, and expect governments to treat them as such. Local banks in my country can face penalties if crypto profits are transfered to a local bank account.

- Regulation for exchanges getting so tough that they can never comply, which will cause them to be shut down, which would generate a run on crypto with a similar effect to FTX bankruptcy.
- Liquidity crises of the exchanges. In case of a bank run, banks can pay about 3% of their account holders. I wonder which amount of liquidity an exchange should have to be solvent. FTX behaved like a bank, but the difference is that FTX' bankruptcy can cause a crash of BTC price while a bank run just leads to the bank being bailed out by the IMF, without the currency getting destroyed.

If you think that none of these things is a realistic threat to the system, let me know.
If there are other threats, likewise.

Simply put, no one, including the government, can stop Bitcoin. But for most people, Bitcoin and other digital currencies are tools for making money and reasonably protecting their property. If I were the government, I would cancel the cash flow channel, close the exchange, and prohibit the transaction of digital currency. It is possible to make digital currency transactions illegal.

[coinerer]

Since Bitcoin is a decentralized currency and it is very popular worldwide, it is not a wise thing to fight against it and it is not possible to fight against it because even if the government of a country outlaws and bans Bitcoin in its country, still Bitcoins are traded through various third parties.  Lovers will use Bitcoin in any way.  Which cannot be prevented by the government so if I were the government I would focus more on how to better use Bitcoin instead of fighting against it.